As usual with Richter releases, it’s best to start by explaining
how all this slots into the pianist’s complicated discography.
I am relying on an internet source which seems
to be pretty complete and well organized.

A very slightly earlier performance of the Schubert sonata – Tokyo,
7 February 1979 – was issued by EMI, subsequently by Melodiya,
Le Chant du Monde, Olympia, Regis and others. Previous circulation
of the London performance has been limited to an earlier BBC
issue. These two seem to be the only Richter performances of
the sonata in existence.

The Manchester performance of the Huttenbrenner is the only known
one. It has had a few previous issues.

The Schumann is a classic example of Richter’s nearly-but-not-quite
completist stance. As early as 1948 he set the cycle down in
Moscow minus nos. 4, 6 and 7. By 1956 – in Moscow and Prague – he
had added no. 7, and so it remained in Manchester in 1969.
Various performances of single numbers are scattered around
but he never seems to have touched 4 and 6.

A similar enigma surrounds Richter’s “Images”. He played “Estampes” and
the first book of “Images” on numerous occasions. Equally numerous
are the surviving performance of the first piece from the second
book, from 1954 through to 1968, usually as an encore. The
Manchester performance is the third on BBC Legends alone and
is the only item here which is actually appearing for the first
time. No recordings have emerged of the remaining two “Images” in
this book.

The Schubert Sonata provides interesting fuel for a discussion of
exactly what constitutes personality in a performer. Schubert’s
dynamic markings are scrupulously observed, tempi are held
consistently, rubato is sparingly applied. You could feel that
he gives insufficient consideration to the fact that the Andante
is in divided common time. Otherwise, on the face of
it the reading could hardly be more faithful to the score if
it had been realized by a computer. Yet it sounds utterly personal,
like no other performance I’ve ever heard.

What carries it into Tchaikovsky, or even Shostakovich, territory
is, I think, the deliberate avoidance of any sort of assuaging
Viennese lilt underlying the performance. This is undeniably
bleak, even despairing music, written shortly after the composer’s
syphilis had been diagnosed. Yet in more “traditional” performances
it retains at least a memory of past happiness, perhaps even
occasional gleams of comfort. This unremittingly tense, monumental
Schubert never seems to have known happiness at all. Ultimately,
I would seek out a performance which maintains a balance between
the disturbing and the comforting elements. However, as a demonstration
of just how tragic and hopeless this music can sound without apparent
distortion of the notes, this version demands to be heard.
For duty’s sake I record that Richter catches quite a few crabs
though this didn’t worry me in the least. The recording is
good.

Richter does not attempt to impose a similar tragic weight on the
Huttenbrenner Variations. Though essentially serious, he concedes
more of a smile, more human warmth. His texturing is always
remarkable, but I would point in particular to Variation 12.
The singing melody and rippling 16th-notes in the
right hand are beautifully separated, while the dotted rhythms
in the staccato left hand create a delightful effect of pizzicato
strings entering not quite together. Whereas a sympathetic
but unimaginative pianist like Dalberto leaves one querying
whether this piece is really worth bothering with, Richter
shows what can be got out of it – again without any distortion,
just by imaginative recreation of the score.

This recording is also good. The problem is the cougher. I am fairly
tolerant over live recordings and can put up with a gentle
background of shuffling and spluttering. Here it seems to be
a single person, strategically placed close to the microphone,
and apparently with a cued score in which the moments best
guaranteed to irritate have been carefully marked. In the end
I found myself thinking more about that than the music. A few
bars’ peace would have me thinking “I haven’t heard from the
cougher for quite a while”, and that would be the cue for the
next entry.

Fortunately the Schumann is less affected, although a particularly
withdrawn moment in “Warum” shows just how much havoc one well-placed
cough can wreak. Here Richter is at his most poetic and communicative.
At the end of the second part of “Warum”, for example, he waits
so long I thought he was not going to play the repeat, then,
as if he had made the decision in that very moment, he plays
the section again even more wistfully and hesitantly than before.
At the other end of the scale is the clarity of texture he
obtains in “Aufschwung”, the powerful surge of “In der Nacht” and
the delicate fingerwork of “Traumes Wirren”.

Textures and evocative poetry are again to the fore in the Debussy.
If a classic interpreter such as Monique Haas fascinates us
by the intricate mechanism of the superimposed chimes, with
Richter each strand comes from a different distance, wafting
gently through the evening air. Debussy’s title does not actually
specify evening, but that’s the impression we get from Richter.

There’s some supreme playing to be heard here. A pity about the cougher.

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